


"No $#^* There We Were..."

by Nagaina



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Established couple, For Drawlloween 2016, Multi, Supernatural Shenanigans, may occupy the same timeline as Brothers In Arms, yes I am writing for Drawlloween, you do not want to see my sad excuse for figurative art
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-17
Updated: 2016-10-17
Packaged: 2018-08-22 23:35:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8305562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nagaina/pseuds/Nagaina
Summary: A selection of short ficbits written in response to Drawlloween 2016 prompts. Because OF COURSE I'm writing for Drawlloween.





	1. Ghost Stories On the Nakasendo Highway

The ryokan sat on the brow of the hill overlooking the tiny mountain town for as long as anyone could remember -- longer, point in fact, falling into the vast space of time between the advent of reliable record-keeping and the present. Nishiyama was the undisputed oldest but this one could not be more than a century or two younger, its existence, in some form or another, attested by ukiyo-e prints dated from the 1600s, black and white photos from the 1920s, digital photos and video posted to urban explorer and ghost hunter websites in the mid-2050s. It had been a popular place for the more athletic breed of tourists right up until the Great Chubu Earthquake reorganized the inner workings of the mountains, drained the onsen that gave the ryokan its purpose, and reduced it to a picturesque near-ruin, according to the locals who still mourned the loss of custom that the onsen once brought to the entire area. Others, of a less mercantile sensibility, muttered to them as they gathered intelligence that the disaster had befallen not one moment too soon, the place having always possessed a fell aspect hidden beneath the good reputation of the healing waters of the spring from the hour of its foundation, whispered tales centuries old of travelers poisoned and bludgeoned in their beds, bellies slit and stuffed with stones, bodies dumped over the side of the promontory to sink forever into the depths of the river below, spoke of the far more recent and far more horrific crimes of the young man who picked off both tourists and locals travelling alone and, once he was done, dumped the bodies in the ryokan’s well, now as dry as the onsen itself.

It was in relation to that last piece of tragic history that they had come to this little mountain hamlet, a former post-town dating from the Shogunate, their decision impelled by a request so heartfelt that Hanzo could not find it in himself to refuse it: the plea of a bereft sister to find and put to rest the ghost of her younger brother, whose face she had found in one of those ghost hunter videos.

(“Wait, really?” Jesse had asked, incredulous. “Aren’t there...professionals to take care of that sort of thing?”

Hanzo had wordlessly shown him the video and still images that had resulted from the last “professional” incursion and, once Jesse had stopped swearing, booked them both passage aboard a container ship leaving Seattle that night. Their client met them on the dock in Yokohama three weeks later in the company of an old woman so tiny and wizened she seemed nearly half a ghost herself and together they had repaired to her home/shop, walls and ceiling hung with hundreds of charms, painted paper and carved jade and braided hemp, where she armed them with the tools they would need to put down the onryu spawned by a young man’s cruel and too-early death.)

“I want you to know, this is easily the freakiest thing I have ever done.” Jesse informed him as they sat together in the most-intact portion of the more-than-half-ruined ryokan -- the part with a bit of roof remaining and four intact walls, enough to give respite from the chill autumn breeze and the occasional gusty of rainstorm. “And I worked for a man who loved Halloween more than any other holiday and who found new and exciting ways to freak everybody out every year for sixteen. To which I was an active party. More than once.”

“Mmmm.” The shafts of his arrows were sheathed head to fletching in a single long ofuda, a prayer for the peace and repose of the wrathful spirit; he lay them out next to him on the clean mats they carried up the hill with them to give some comfort to their lonely, and frankly rather eerie, camp. “You may be in the process of acquiring a new standard of comparison.”

Next to him and slightly behind, Jesse flipped open Peacemaker’s cylinder, spun it, flicked it closed. Not precisely prone to nervous gestures was his partner but if he had any that was it: the need to make certain his weapon was loaded and ready, a need that grew gradually stronger as the day wore on, as the angle of the light through the autumn-brilliant trees changed and deepened in hue, as the sun began sinking behind the saw-edged ridge of the mountains. Arming him for this task had been somewhat more complicated, required the skills of their client’s onmyoji and a gunsmith capable of producing the required ammunition and, even then, there was not much: the six rounds currently occupying the cylinder plus two more speedloaders clipped to his belt. “Not helping, darlin’.”

“Consider it a heartfelt warning, then.” Hanzo lifted the first of his arrows as the last of the sunlight faded, staining the lowering clouds a bloody crimson, set it in place against the guide and knocked it on the string.

The wind that had spent the day finding chinks in the walls to chill them as they waited and blowing drifts of crimson and golden leaves cross the mossy stones of the well court suddenly and completely died. In the silence previously occupied by the soughing of the wind through the trees a low moaning rose, barely audible but hackle-raising for all of that -- and in more than once voice. Many, many more, and Jesse muttered something under his breath in Spanish that had the cadence of prayer to it; Hanzo could hardly blame him. The sound rose slowly from a subvocal sound of lamentation to a nerve-clawing shriek, howls of rage, of fury, of all-consuming and indiscriminate hatred of all things, of life itself. Hanzo rose smoothly to his feet and just as smoothly drew to his ear as a pale and, for the moment, formless mist began boiling over the mossy edge of the well.

“Jesse,” He said evenly, as the mist began to take forms -- several. “Hold your fire for now. I suspect we will need all the ammunition that we have.”

His bowstring sang a pure and cleansing song as he fired.


	2. The Dream of the Dragon Prince's Gunslinger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the Drawlloween prompt "Tentacle Tuesday."

Hanzo realized something was wrong when he heard the moaning over the sound of the shower, in which he happened to be standing at the time.

_Yeah -- oh, yeah -- fuck, yes, darlin’ -- right there --_

Hanzo turned off the water and listened, tensely, every sense alert. He smelt and breathed in the salty perfume of the ocean -- they were much too far inland for that -- caught a hint of the gentle hiss of the tide kissing the shore under the whisper-soft sounds of the hotel climate control -- they had been nowhere near anything resembling sand in weeks -- and, most importantly, whatever absentminded endearments Jesse McCree might apply to others, he was the only one to be called any variation of the term _darling._ He took a moment to prepare himself, tying up his still-damp hair, making certain his hands were dry enough to be sure on the grip of a knife or a bowstring, sliding into his yukata and belting it tightly. The bathroom door slid open with only slightest sound and the shaft of light fell across the bed in a particularly unmerciful fashion.

Fortunately, the independently mobile mass of shadowy tentacles currently making a somewhat dubious attempt at humanoid shape had not yet done anything mind-shatteringly egregious. Also: it had been a rather difficult last seventy-two hours, with the two of them enjoying perhaps nine hours of sleep between them, and so he could not entirely blame a mostly-insensible Jesse for not completely waking up when something warm and strong and insistent began making its way into his clothing with the apparent intent of soporific massage. Three hours, six showers, and two and a half bottles of the hotel’s finest sake (most of which Jesse consumed alone between showers three and five) later, Jesse declared in the flat and unflinching tone of one who had passed both trauma and therapeutic drunkenness and entered a genuinely transcendent state of _done, so done_ , “We are going somewhere _thousands of miles_ from the nearest ocean, Hanzo. Right now. Today. _Saskatchewan_. There can’t be any fucking tentacle monsters in fucking _Saskatchewan_.”

Hanzo ran a soothing hand through his hair and gathered him close; honestly, they had already spent more time in Japan than he ever thought they would following the kuchisake-onna incident, anyway. “I will make the arrangements immediately.”

Some weeks later, as they huddled together in a hunting camp in the midst of a vast arboreal forest contemplating how best to escape both with their lives, Hanzo would have similarly strong feelings about wendigo and have no hesitation whatsoever about saying so.

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "rising from the dead."


End file.
